Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Fitting In My Workouts No Matter What (or Last Workouts Before The 5K)

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 3 comments

It was not easy to get my 3 workouts in this week, but I did it.

I knew that it was going to be an odd week of workouts even before having to go down to San Diego. I had the Hollywood Half 5K on Saturday and knew that I would not be working out on Friday. And there was a chance that I was going to be at Disneyland on Monday with a family friend.

So the original plan was to work out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.

Then my grandpa passed away and my schedule got crazy.

I cancelled my Disneyland plans right away. Then I started to wonder how I could get 3 workouts in during the week.

It’s probably stupid that I was worried about my workouts when there was a death in the family, but I guess that is how I was coping.

I started to think about what time I would have and how late I would be getting back from San Diego on Tuesday to see if I could do a Tuesday evening workout. But after debating it all for a few minutes, I figured out a schedule.

I would do my Wednesday and Thursday workouts as planned and add an early Sunday workout before driving to be with my family.

Sunday morning was not a great workout for me. Again, I had issues with getting my heart rate high enough (I guess the side effect of a speedy heart rate with my new medication went away). I was also pretty stressed out about going to San Diego. It didn’t feel real that my grandpa died, so I was worried that as soon as I got to San Diego it would all hit me (it did, but not in the way I was expecting it to). I tried my best to get through the workout, but I know that I wasn’t doing my best.

Wednesday was a pretty good one for me. I was worried that I would feel a bit out of shape from the lack of exercise and the good food from the past few days, but it didn’t affect me nearly as much as I thought. The biggest challenge I had in my workout on Wednesday was the 800 meter row.

We had to do this 2 different times in the workout. We had to write down our first time and then try to beat it the second time. And for every second longer our second time took, we had to do a burpee. I pushed myself like crazy on that rower. My goal was to be under 4 minutes, and I did it!

800 Meter Row

My name is toward the bottom of the board. And you can see that my second time was exactly 1 second slower than the first. So I owed 1 burpee. But considering that my goal was to be under 4 minutes, both my rows were pretty amazing!

After that exhausting workout, I was feeling a bit sore for my Thursday workout. But since it was my final workout before the 5K, I wanted to push myself as much as I could on the treadmill. I wanted to see if I could get a new PR on the 5K, and treadmill training is what will get me there.

The treadmill workout was all hills. I usually hate the hills, but I was grateful for them on Thursday. A majority of the 5K is on a flat road (there are a few hills), so since I’m used to training at an incline the 5K should almost feel like a downhill race.

Besides going hard on the treadmill, I’m still working on upping my weights when I’m doing the floor work. I’m finally starting to see (and feel) the results of the heavier weights. Even though the scale isn’t going down that much, I feel much lighter. And I have some pretty decent sized muscles now (they are just covered up by fat). Hopefully when the scale starts dropping again, the visually results will be seen more because I have more muscle to show off.

I’m so glad I got my 3 workouts in even though I was dealing with so much. I know I say this again and again, but it just proves to me how much of a priority working out is for me now. I never felt like that prior to Orangetheory and it makes me so proud that I’m dedicated to my workouts now.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be recapping the Hollywood Half 5K!

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Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

Posted on April 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

This past week, I had 3 workouts. And 2 of those 3 were in the morning.

I haven’t been a huge fan of morning workouts. Sometimes I have trouble pushing myself or getting my heart rate up high enough.

But I’m definitely getting better at them.

I’m pretty much doing my Monday workouts at 9:30am instead of 4pm now. Like I’ve said before, there’s no reason for me to have an afternoon workout on a day that I don’t have to work. So that 9:30am class is starting to feel more normal to me.

This past Monday my focus was on continuing my speed and heavier weight training. I’m getting more comfortable with both and that’s making me happy. I’m seeing a transformation in how I feel during and after my workouts. And since I’m not seeing a lot of transformation on how I’m looking physically, having some transformation makes me feel like all my hard work isn’t for nothing. And I can’t help but smile at that.

Tough Workout

On Wednesday, since I had the podcast dinner in the evening, I had to do a before work workout. Before work workouts are always early for me (7:30am). It also requires me to wake up an hour earlier than I’m used to. I think that those are going to continue to be tough for me since I’m working out when I’m used to waking up. And I have no desire to wake up an hour earlier every day (I wake up the same time every day because that’s supposed to be better for you).

That workout wasn’t that great for me, but I was there and I did it. I was having a lot of trouble on the treadmill because it was almost all hills, but I took breaks when I had to and got through it.

Friday’s workout was a bit weird for me. I found out bad news on Thursday (more about that tomorrow) and I was just feeling off. It was a run/row day and I’m very grateful for that. It made me have to focus on the workout (since the coach wasn’t telling us during cardio when to transition) and not think about things outside of the workout.

But during the strength section, I had to do down in how heavy the weights were. I think part of that was because I was exhausted. I didn’t get a ton of sleep the night before and I know that being tired affects my workouts a lot.

This week, I’ll do another 3 Orangetheory workouts and then I have my 5K on Saturday. I’m starting to get really nervous about the 5K, but I guess I’ll see how it goes this weekend. And as long as I finish (and don’t finish in last place), I’ll be happy.

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4 Workout Week (or Heavy Weights And Speedy Treadmills)

Posted on March 30, 2015 | 1 comment

It was another 4 workout week at Orangetheory. I’ve pretty much decided that on Mondays, I’m going to do morning workouts (unless I already have something scheduled in the morning). It’s just easier for me not to have to drive home in rush hour traffic and there’s no reason why I should have to save my afternoon on my day off. Plus, morning workouts allow me to do fun things like Disneyland on my day off!

I’m still struggling with getting my heart rate to get up in the mornings, but that makes me feel like these morning workouts are needed. I need to be good with working out anytime during the day.

My biggest focuses right now in my workouts are to keep increasing my weights and treadmill speed. I haven’t been in a plateau, but I know that I can’t restrict pushing myself due to the fear of hurting my hips.

I’m having an ok time with using at least 15 pound weights for everything. For chest and shoulder work, it’s still tough. Especially when we have longer sets (like 10-15 reps each round). I’m getting really fatigued but I’m trying to not go down to lower weights right away. I’ve been doing alright with that. I’m pretty much not reducing the weight I’m lifting until the 3rd or 4th round each time.

Where I’m having trouble is pushing myself beyond the 15 pound weights. I know that for some things like squats that I can probably start using the 20 pound weights. But I don’t always grab for those. They just seem so extreme somehow to me. But I’m aware that I’m not reaching for the heavier weights now so hopefully the next time I have the opportunity to use them, I will.

As far as speeding up on the treadmill, I was able to keep my pace at 3.4 miles an hour during all 4 workouts. On my Saturday workout, it was definitely a struggle because my legs were tired (plus it was a hill day which doesn’t make things easier). I have no plan to move to 3.5 miles an hour anytime soon. 3.4 miles an hour still seems really fast to me.

But the other change I’ve been working on making on the treadmill is my walking speed between blocks. For the joggers and runners, when they get to walk they are told to put the treadmill at 3.0 miles an hour. Since that has always been so close to my walking speed, I would lower my treadmill speed to 2.0 or 2.5 miles an hour when I walk between the blocks. But I’m trying to go to 3.0 miles an hour between blocks sometimes. When we’ve just done a crazy hill or all-out (where I’m at 15% incline) I still need the super slow speed to cool-down. But if I’m not beyond exhausted at the end of a block, I’m really trying to only go down to 3.0 miles an hour.

These are all good progress steps in my mind. I’m much happier with the progress I’ve made with the weights than the progress I’ve made on the treadmill. I’m not sure why that is, but I just feel like my treadmill work is still such a struggle (the hip pain doesn’t help). Maybe I’ll feel better about it in a few weeks when I have my next 5K. I have no idea if I’ll PR again, but I feel like it’s a possibility because I’m doing faster treadmill workouts at Orangetheory now than I was doing before my last 5K.

I’ll just have to wait and see what happens at the 5K.

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Getting Faster Bit By Bit (or Speeding Up My Heart And My Walking)

Posted on March 23, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting Faster Bit By Bit (or Speeding Up My Heart And My Walking)

I’m getting more and more used to my heart rate being fast during my workouts. And the more days that go by, the more normal my heart rate becomes. In fact, it might almost be back to before the medication this week or next.

It was nice for a little while to have my heart rate faster than usual. I felt like I was getting more out of my workouts since I was getting more time in the orange zone. I know that it doesn’t really work that way when your heart rate is fast due to medication, but it felt like that to me.

But this past week, getting into the orange zone wasn’t as easy this past week as it was the week before. I’m working on using heavier weights during all of my workouts, but I know that I have to step up my cardio as well.

I’ve been using the incline on the treadmill a lot more than I did in the past. For my base pace, power walkers are supposed to be at 3% incline. I now always have it at 4%. During my push pace, I used to be at somewhere between 6-9%. Now I have it at at least 10%. My all-out pace is still at 15%, but that’s because 15% is the highest that the treadmill goes.

But as I get in better and better shape, my heart rate doesn’t go as high with incline as it used to (it’s real proof that my heart is getting stronger!). I’ve tried to slowly increase my speed, but it hasn’t been easy.

When I started at Orangetheory, I was usually at 3.0 or 3.1 miles an hour. I liked 3.1 miles an hour because then I knew that at that speed it would take me exactly an hour to do a 5K. Eventually, I was at 3.2 miles an hour on the treadmill. And a little while ago I went up to 3.3 miles an hour.

But this week, I really wanted to push myself. Maybe it’s because in my head I’ve realized that there is no way that I will not have another surgery on my hip in my near future. It’s inevitable and I better use my hip before it gets cut up and I have a long recovery. So I went to 3.4 miles an hour for all 3 of my workouts. I know that this isn’t that fast yet and I’m still below 3.5 miles an hour which is the bottom of what power walkers are considered at Orangetheory, but it’s improvement.

And I need to keep taking steps like this in increasing my speed. I’ve decided that if I ever decided to do a half marathon, the only one that I will consider will be one at Disneyland. If I’m going to do something that crazy, I might as well be at my favorite place in the world. All Disneyland races have a required pace time of a 16-minute per mile or faster.

So I found this great chart online to help me get to my goal of 16 minute miles.

Walking Speed Guide

I would probably want to be at 3.9 miles an hour on the treadmill to feel comfortable doing a Disneyland race. I know that those races have lots of awesome photo ops, and I’d want to have time to take advantage of those. On the Disneyland race website they even recommend having a training pace of 15-minute miles to allow for the photo ops. So that would bring me to 4.0 miles an hour on the treadmill.

That seems like so far away from where I am right now. But in reality, it’s not that much more of a jump than what I have done from when I started at Orangetheory to now. So maybe in another year (unless I have my hip surgery), I’ll be at my goal speed.

I’m thinking of making a training plan to figure out how to steadily increase my speed. I’m also looking at making a plan for increasing my weights as well. I might work on that this week when I have some time between customers at my day job.

But if any of you have ideas on how to make a plan to increase my speed (I’m not even starting to think about increasing my distance yet), I’d really love to hear your recommendations. I’m really so new at all of this, so I can use any help that I can get!

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Seeing My Heart Rate Spike (or What It’s Like Working Out On The New Medication)

Posted on March 16, 2015 | Comments Off on Seeing My Heart Rate Spike (or What It’s Like Working Out On The New Medication)

This past week, I got 4 workouts in (finally!). Two of those workouts were before I started the new medication and two of them were after. And those workouts were like night and day!

I was finally back to my normal schedule for workouts, so that made me happy. Monday was fine but Wednesday was a bit tough. My hips were killing me after being positioned so strangely for my x-rays. I don’t remember having so much pain after my last set of x-rays, but I just tried to not focus on the pain and to listen to my body when I might need to take breaks.

Even though on my post on Friday, I didn’t know exactly when I would start the new medication, I actually was able to start on Friday morning (I take the medicine once a day and in the morning only). I’ll go more into how my first week on the new medicine goes towards the end of this week, but it really did change my workouts.

I have no idea if it was a smart thing to do a workout on the first day of a new medication, but I did it and I can’t change that. My heart was racing like crazy all day, even if I was just sitting at my desk. With my heart racing so much, it was almost causing a panic attack as well! But I just tried to take deep breaths and remind myself that an increased heart rate is a very common (and almost expected) side effect of the medication.

I warned my coach on Friday that my heart rate was racing and that I wasn’t sure how I would do in the workout. He told me to just listen to my body and to take any extra breaks that I might need. And I really needed those extra breaks!

I have been struggling a lot lately to get my heart rate up into the orange zone. But when you compare a workout from the beginning of the week to one at the end of the week, you can see how much higher my heart rate was the entire time.

11054361_10153136765947748_6855438077333099653_n

The top one is from the beginning of the week and the bottom is from the end of the week. And the zones that the app has is different from the zones at Orangetheory, so it doesn’t really show how much time I spent in the orange and red zone (I was there for 33 minutes of a 55 minute workout).

There were a couple of scary moments where my heart was racing so hard that I was getting dizzy and nauseous. That pretty much only happened on the treadmill so when I felt like that I just stepped onto the side rails and caught my breath. I had that feeling once doing floor work, and when that happened I just held onto the wall until the feeling went away (it was gone in about 30 seconds).

The other thing I noticed is that my heart rate is not dropping back to a “normal” rate as quickly as it used to. I expected my normal to be higher, but I thought that all the cardio work that I have done would continue to show (the stronger you are in cardio, the quicker your heart rate goes from a high zone to a regular rate). But I was staying high much longer than before.

I have no idea if the heart rate thing will be a forever thing while I’m on this medication or if it will get better as my body gets used to taking it. I’m taking notes and will be bringing all of these things up with my doctor next month when we discuss how I’m doing on the medicine as well as if I need to increase the dosage.

But while I’m doing all this adjusting to the heart rate changes, I’m more grateful than ever that I have to wear a heart rate monitor at Orangetheory. Even though I would wear a heart rate monitor at SoulCycle, I never looked at what my heart rate was during the class. I mainly used it to track my calorie burn. But now, I’m really paying attention to what my heart rate is doing and trying to make sure that I stay safe in my workouts.

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A Welcome Distraction At The Film Festival (or Loving Second Place)

Posted on March 11, 2015 | 1 comment

I spent most of the weekend busy stressing out about the film festival. There wasn’t much time to think about anything else or to do anything else over those days.

So when I found out that the party to announce the winners of the latest weight loss challenge was going to be announced on Saturday, I knew that it would be impossible for me to go. But I asked the leader of my team in the challenge, Bruce, to send me an email to let me know what happened at the party.

On Saturday, I was running around like crazy trying to get things done so I wasn’t even thinking about missing the party. So when I sat down during one of the screenings to check the dozens of emails and texts that I had missed, I got very excited when I saw that there was one from Bruce.

And here’s what it said:

OTFLA WLC Email

While I had an idea that I might place in the local challenge, I was not expecting second place!

I got a follow-up email after that one that said that as the second place winner I will get a free month of membership. That’s pretty awesome!

The national challenge winners haven’t been announced yet, but I really doubt that I placed in it. Unless the winner of the local challenge at my location placed first or second and I got fourth. But that seems very unlikely.

I didn’t quite lose my goal of 10% of my body weight, but I was close, But if I did reach that goal, I still would have been in second place. The winner in the local challenge lost something like 15 or 16% of their starting body weight.

But even if I didn’t place at all, I still would be happy with the work that I did over the challenge. I worked out really hard, made sacrifices in my social life (and my sleep) to get in the required workouts each week, and I worked on my diet more than I have in the past. All of these are positive changes that won’t be ending because the challenge is over.

Considering that I didn’t place in the first weight loss challenge and I got second in this challenge, maybe the next challenge will be my turn to place first! And maybe I’ll be updating this post soon if I end up placing in the national challenge!

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Not Loving Early Workouts (or Trying My Best)

Posted on March 9, 2015 | 1 comment

Between my weekend trip, my new temp job, and the film festival; last week was a very limited week for workouts. I knew that getting 4 workouts during the week would pretty much be impossible. But I was going to do whatever I had to do to get my 3 workouts in.

Doing whatever I had to do included getting up early (for me) and working out at 7:30am twice.

Tuesday was my first 7:30am workout. It was not easy waking up. My flight home had been delayed over 2 hours and I was home much later than expected. But I managed to wake up and get my butt to Orangetheory in time for the 7:30am class.

7:30am Orangetheory

It was one of the toughest workouts for me since my very first workout. First of all, my last workout had been on the past Wednesday. So it had almost been a week since I worked out. I haven’t taken that much time off between workouts since I started in the summer. So my body was feeling a little weak and things were harder than I remembered.

The second reason that the workout was tough for me is for some reason I could not get my heart rate up. I’m used to completing the 12-20 minutes in the orange zone each workout. But for some reason in this class, I barely got a minute. And I was constantly trying to push myself to get my heart rate in the orange zone, so that was making me more tired as well. Eventually I had to realize that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Wednesday’s workout was during my usual workout time in the afternoon. Overall, it was a great class and even though I had worked out the day before, my body was feeling much better than in Tuesday’s workout.

And it was a very rowing heavy workout. The rower is still tough for me and I have issues using enough power in my legs and not in my arms. But I’m working on it. And in this workout, we had to row 1200 meters two separate times. 1200 meters is a lot for me. I like the sprints like 100 or 200 meters because I can get them done quickly. But 1200 meters takes about 6 minutes of constant rowing.

Knowing that I had a long row, I set a goal in my head to take my time and to finish it without stopping. I was the last rower to finish each time, but I was able to do both sets of 1200 meters without taking any breaks!

I felt amazing after doing that! My legs might have felt like jello, but I was pretty darn happy with myself for not having to stop during 6 minutes of rowing!

And because of my limited time options for working out, I was back at Orangetheory on Thursday morning (there was about 14 hours between my Wednesday and Thursday workout). I’ve never had such a small turnaround time between workouts. I’ve also rarely done 3 workouts in a row. And of course I had the issues at the beginning of the week with my heart rate not wanting to go up in an early workout.

Sadly, my second 7:30am workout of the week was similar to the first. I struggled due to being tired from 3 workouts in a row. And my heart rate never made it into the orange zone. But I tried my best and even if it wasn’t a wonderful workout, some workout is better than no workout.

I have no idea why I can’t get my heart rate up for early morning workouts. I don’t have this issue when I work out at 9:30am. I don’t plan on doing 7:30am workouts regularly, so I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out the answer to this problem.

But at least even with all the craziness I have going on in my life, I was able to get my 3 workouts done.

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Short Workout Week (or Finding Ways To Fit It All In)

Posted on March 2, 2015 | Comments Off on Short Workout Week (or Finding Ways To Fit It All In)

Even though I got 3 workouts in this past week, it feels like I had a mini-week of workouts. That might be because I usually workout on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and sometimes Saturday). But due to lots of scheduling issues (including work and a trip), I had to fit all my workouts in during the beginning of the week.

My first workout of the week was on Sunday. This was actually my first Sunday workout. I didn’t think that it would feel odd to me since I work out on Saturdays, but I really felt a difference in a Sunday workout versus a weekday or Saturday one.

A lot of the difference was in timing it all out. I had to eat something pre-workout, have my workout, shower, eat lunch, and then head out to the Oscar Party. I wanted to make sure that I ate enough that I wasn’t starving at the party, but not too much so that I could enjoy some food there.

I managed to get through my workout fine and took a post-workout selfie to remember how hard I worked that day.

Post Workout Mirror Selfie

My Monday workout was a bit tough for me. It was the second workout in a row for me (which is still a bit challenging) and it was an early workout because I had my Disneyland afternoon/evening ahead. I also knew that at Disneyland, I usually walk between 5-10 miles, so I didn’t want to be too exhausted after the workout.

I had some issues during that workout (and at Disneyland later) with some pretty significant hip pain. I know that I’m pushing myself farther than I ever thought I could go (and probably more than my hip surgeon thought I could do as well), and sometimes I will just have to deal with the pain.

My final workout of the week was on Wednesday. It was also my day to weigh in for the end of the National Weight Loss Challenge. I had a goal of losing 10% of my body weight in those 6 weeks. I was about 2 pounds away from that goal, so I’m not too upset. I doubt I will win the national part of the challenge, but maybe I’ll place. And I feel good about my chances of placing in the challenge for the studio that I go to. I guess I’ll have to wait a little while to find out what happens.

The workout had 6 blocks in it, 3 of them being on the treadmill. And all the treadmill blocks were spent most of the time at a high incline (between 10-15%). I’m really getting better at the incline work and my base pace at 4% incline is starting to feel like a flat road for me. I think that will really help in my next 5K race where the road is really flat. Maybe it will feel like a downhill road then entire time.

Due to my trip, my next workout won’t be until tomorrow (Tuesday). That means that I will almost have a week off between my last workout and my next one. That scares me a little. Hopefully I don’t lose too much progress or strength during that break. I know I’ll be doing some walking on my trip, but nothing like what I’m used to.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how my body reacts to such a long break (and I’ll try to make sure that I don’t have another long break like that in the future).

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“Only” 3 Workouts This Week (or Testing A Pre-Work Workout Time)

Posted on February 23, 2015 | 1 comment

This week I only got 3 workouts in. I wish I could have gotten more workouts done, and it could have been accomplished. But I can’t have regrets in getting 3 workouts done when before Orangetheory I could only strive to get 3 workouts in in a week.

I thought I was starting my new temp job this past week, and that didn’t happen (I have no clue if it will happen this week either). But I planned my workouts with the assumption that I would be working the new job this week, so that restricted things a bit for me.

Monday was going to be a normal workout time. But then I realized that if I moved my workout to earlier, I could go to San Diego for the day. So I decided to sign up for a class at 7:30am. That’s so early for me! But I realized that unless I go to an earlier class, that is the only class time I could do if I wanted to do a workout before I start work (I will have to do that in about a week).

My body wasn’t really awake when I arrived to the workout, but I quickly perked up when I had to do my first push pace on the treadmill. I wasn’t in as much pain as I thought I would be, so that’s a big positive. And I think that my workout report proves that I kicked some butt in that early class!

IMG_4688

It’s not my highest calorie burn, but it’s up there!

As far as timing it out for a before work workout, it worked perfectly. But then I realized that there was no traffic on the freeway when I was going to the class and home from the class. I forgot that Monday was a holiday so many people weren’t going to work. So I don’t know exactly how it will work out when there is traffic, but worst case I start my work shift with wet hair. That’s not the worst thing.

Wednesday was my usual class time and it felt much more normal to me than my early workout. But changing things up for me is a good thing and I know I probably need to do it more often.

Friday was a challenging day. I had a bit of an incident at my house on Thursday evening and Friday morning (more about that in another blog post) and I was dealing with a lot of shoulder, back, and arm pain. My upper body is usually where I can push myself more and more since I’m so limited in my hip movement. But this class I had to try to go more with my lower body to ease things on my upper body.

I did step ups onto the bench which is something I usually avoid. They hurt quite a bit, but I pushed through them and fortunately that section of the workout was done pretty quickly. And I think I didn’t feel as much pain in my hips as usual because I was dealing with pain in my upper body. So my mind must have been confused with all that extra pain in parts of my body that don’t usually hurt.

This week will be another 3 workout week. And the week after will probably have to be the same. I’m trying not to get frustrated because there are things that I’ve been looking forward to that are preventing me from working out. And I have to be ok with 3 workouts without thinking that I need to do more. Plus, in a few weeks my life will be calmer and I can get back to seeing how often I can have a 4 workout week.

But for now, when I “only ” have 3 workouts, I need to make sure I push myself as much as possible to get the most out of those 3 workouts.

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Waiting On The Wait List (or The Text That Made My Week)

Posted on February 16, 2015 | Comments Off on Waiting On The Wait List (or The Text That Made My Week)

I think it’s pretty obvious now that I’m very focused on making sure that my workouts happen each week. While I’ve set my minimum number of workouts a week at 3, I really strive for 4. Especially since there are some weeks coming up soon where 4 workouts will be impossible. And if I want to reach my goal of 175 workouts this year, I have to spend about half the year working out 4 times a week.

This week was one of those weeks where I thought I could get in 4 workouts. Then, I found out about an event on Friday (more about that tomorrow) that I wasn’t going to miss. And since I thought I was starting my temp job this week, I didn’t know when else I could workout.

Then, I found out that the start date for the temp job was pushed back so I tried to get into a Thursday class. Unfortunately, there was already a waitlist and no guarantee that I would get in. I tried to think positively, but I was worried that I wouldn’t get in. I even wore my workout clothes that day not knowing whether or not I would get in my workout.

But then, I got this text and had a super enthusiastic response to it.

OTF Text

Thank goodness I got into class! I needed the workout after the crazy week I had at work and I love that my workouts are now the way I deal with stress (instead of food).

All my workouts this week went really well. I’m having some increasing hip issues with lifting my legs during step ups on the benches, but there are modifications that I can do. And I have an appointment with a hip surgeon in a few weeks, so I’ll go over that problem with them.

My favorite workout this week was on Saturday. Since it was Valentine’s Day, it was a partner workout. Partner workouts are great because I feel extra motivated to get through my sets quickly. My partner is depending on me. The cardio portion of the partner workout was a run/row. I ended up spending more than half of my time on the rower. I’m getting much better at the rower (I rowed 750 meters and 1000 meters without stopping earlier this week). While my technique isn’t perfect because of my hip, I’m definitely a better rower now than I was even a month ago.

The strength portion of the partner workout was half floor work and half strap work. When one of us was on the strap, the other was on the floor. The moves were all pretty tough, but I had an amazing partner (who I only met for the first time in class when we had to partner up). We got through the entire rotation of work twice, and I don’t believe that any other team was able to do so.

While I did get my 4 workouts in this week, the next 2 or 3 weeks will have to be 3 workout weeks. I’ve got lots of things coming up that will affect when I can work out (like being out-of-town or running my film festival). It actually making me a bit mad that I won’t be able to do 4 workouts in a week for a while, but I’m trying to go easy on myself. And I am trying a super early (at least for me) workout today so if that works out well for me, I might add that in to some of the weeks where I can only do 3 afternoon or weekend workouts.

As always, I’ll update you next week how this new plan goes!

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